Black Glam: Unique Dandridge dishes on helping women embrace their natural hair
This stylist said "bye bye" to heat for good.
The latest installment of Black Glam features our style correspondent Johnny Wright as he sits down with celebrity stylist and natural hair guru, Unique Dandridge.
The Inglewood-based hairstylist is known for working her magic on natural hair, helping women to find heat-free styles that work for them.
Unique Dandrige is so adamant about healthy hair, she refuses to use any heat whatsoever and does her best to stay away from chemicals as well.
“It has been such a tremendous blessing in my life. What I have seen heat and chemicals do to people’s hair really didn’t sit well with me so I decided one day that I didn’t want to do heat,” she explained during her exclusive chat with Wright.
Unique’s chemical-free credo means wild colors are out too.
“I do gray coverage but that’s about it. I try to stay away from bleach. I just want the hair in its natural state and to be as healthy as it can be,” she said. “I do some crochet braiding but I don’t do the needle. It can be detrimental to your hair…We need our edges!”
When it comes to her celebrity clients like Holly Robinson Peete, Unique knows they’re looking for ways to keep their hair stylish and safe from damage.
“Their hair is their crown,” she says.
Unique is so serious about steering clear of heat, she threw out all of her flat-irons. “I sold them all. After I finished school, I sold all of them,” she told a shocked Johnny Wright.
“I have to stay true to who I am. I have been through so much with my own hair. When I see women come in, i don’t want to do any damage to their hair because I know how it feels.”
Like Wright, Unique Dandridge was bitten by the styling bug early in life.
“I was in fifth grade and I had those Poetic Justice braids and one fell out,” she explained. When her mother refused to try to reattach the runaway extension, Unique took matters into her own hands, spending two hours trying to get the braid back in place. “After that, I never looked back.”
While the stylist continues to beautify her celebrity clients, she’s also accessible to real women who wants to keep their natural hair in good shape from her salon suite in Inglewood, California.
She’s really feeling Sanaa Lathan’s look lately, especially since she chopped it all of for her starring role in Netflix’s Nappily Ever After.
